We don't actually know that, you know. We don't know anything. We just suspect."
"But it makes sense."
"To us. I seriously doubt we can convince anyone else with what we've got."
Veronica considers. "Where's Prester now?"
Jacob flips to a Google Maps window that displays a single red marker on a map of Kampala; Prester's current location. "His office."
"Is anybody else there?"
"Nobody with an active Mango phone. That's all I can tell you."
"But he didn't sound like he was with someone."
"No," Jacob admits.
"When he goes out, we should follow him."
"Follow him?"
"What do you want to do, wait around until he happens to speak clearly into his phone that he's the guy who set up Derek? If this Zanzibar Sam guy really is some kind of Al-Qaeda terrorist contact, the embassy will probably have his picture. Remember that binder full of Arab faces? I bet they'll start taking us seriously once we can pick him out of a lineup. Unless you can make Prester's phone take his picture for us."
"I probably could trigger his camera phone remotely," Jacob says thoughtfully. "Interesting."
"But you wouldn't know when to do it, unless you were watching."
"No. But - were you just listening to what you were saying? Al-Qaeda terrorist contact. You want to go following a guy like that? You and me, in Kampala, where we happen to stand out like Michael Jordan at Albinos Anonymous? Stop me if I'm wrong, but weren't you the one not long ago at all who wanted to give up and go home because this was too dangerous?"
"We have to do something. We're talking about two hundred lives in danger here. At least. And as far as we know nobody else even suspects." She thinks of the NGO workers in the Congo and western Uganda, digging wells, installing solar panels, providing medical care. "I'm not talking about endangering ourselves. This is Kampala, not the Congo. We'll stay in busy places, we won't take any chances, no dark alleys. But if we can't take what we've got to the embassy, then we have to get more evidence ourselves."
Jacob reflects. "I suppose that is actually logical. Insane, maybe, but logical."
"If we can actually see Zanzibar Sam, even from a distance, then we've got something."
He nods slowly. "Fair enough. And now that you mention it, this does sound like the perfect time to break out my digital SLR and telephoto lens."
Chapter 18
The rest of the day passes slowly. Prester, or at least Prester's phone, does not leave his office. He has a few conversations on his Razr, most of which deal with a complicated contract for a pilot project to mine dissolved methane from Lake Kivu, a venture that doesn't appear to have anything to do with Derek or Al-Qaeda or interahamwe. From what Veronica can gather, officials in Kinshasa and Goma have raised many objections to the proposal, most of which are actually coded demands for bribes that must be paid before the project can proceed.
She and Jacob quickly grow bored. Veronica passes the time reading an oddly fascinating science-fiction book called Lord of Light. In the early evening she has Henry take her to New City, where she buys sandwiches and a bagful of snacks from the huge Game supermarket. She spends a good hour just wandering around Game, revelling in its towering, well-lit racks full of First World products. She never imagined when she came to Africa that an air-conditioned supermarket could ever seem so poignant.
Jacob spends the afternoon working on a way to make Prester's Razr take a picture with its onboard phone, and then upload it to Jacob's computer, without Prester ever noticing. He is utterly lost in his technical world, seems unaware of Veronica's presence. She has never seen anyone so engrossed. She has certainly never experienced anything like it herself; even when she worked as a nurse, it was more a question of doing the rounds, filling out forms, and responding to crises and demands, rather than embarking on projects of her own. She wonders what it would be like to be so absorbed by her work.
It is amazing what Jacob can do. Veronica wonders how many other people would be capable of these feats, tracking calls, reprogramming phones, using someone else's cell phone as a remote camera. Probably very few. No wonder Derek wanted Jacob on his side. She is in the presence of a kind of modern-day wizard.
The sun is setting, and Veronica is about to propose that they call it a day, when Jacob's computer